


Before We Start

by Super_Danvers



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Multi, before series 11, clara's memory, finding the TARDIS, i just had fun, i watched the spoiler clip sorry, memories of past companions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:54:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Super_Danvers/pseuds/Super_Danvers
Summary: The newly regenerated Doctor falls to Earth, alone and injured. Trying to find your way around London at night isn't easy, especially when you're an alien from a different planet...





	Before We Start

Ryan Sinclair was twelve when he first met the Doctor. It had been the 22nd April, 2011. He'd been playing football in the street with two of his friends, one of which he'd had a crush on, when he'd met the strange man in the cowboy hat. He'd spoken some words, that he could remember. Something about being there to help. That had confused him. Help with what? Who was he helping? Ryan had hurt his knee about two days before but he didn't need a doctor for that. That's what he'd said his name was, the man he'd met. The Doctor. Funny kind of name, if you asked Ryan. Funny kind of man too. With a white cowboy hat, a long green coat and a bright red bowtie, the strange man had floppy hair and a _really_ big chin. 

Then he'd been gone. Off to his gunfight or whatever, in a big blue box marked 'POLICE' that had vanished before Ryan's eyes. Nobody had believed him, only Amy and Nicole who had been with him at the time. His mum had said he was just imagining things, and his grandma had said he should stop making up stories and focus on his schoolwork. But he hadn't listened. Instead, Ryan searched him up. For years on end, trying to find something on a man called 'Doctor'. He'd been seventeen when he'd found a blog, marking up a man who called himself Doctor. At first, Ryan thought he was wrong. The pictures that came up were slightly different. The box, on a first note, that was different. In some photos it looked almost ancient, in others the differences were only subtle. Maybe the height had changed, or the windows had been painted black, or even the shade of blue was slightly more amplified. But that wasn't what caught Ryan's eye. The man, the Doctor, he changed too. 

In some photos, he was the Doctor that Ryan had met, with the big chin and funny hair but in others he looked completely different but still the same. Previous photos, dated further back, the blog showed the Doctor as a tall, skinny (almost pencil-like) man with wiry hair and a hard frown. In other photos, some taken only a few months previous to Ryan's fifteenth birthday, this man had an embedded frown with wild grey hair. He looked so _old_. The blog said he solved alien invasions and problems, stuff like that. So, Ryan tried to track him down. Investigating into paranormal things, anything that didn't seem normal. UFO sightings, reports of strange noises in strange places, anything out of the blue. But he never found him. Ryan was sure if he found him, he could prove to everyone that he was right all those years ago. 

And that's how Ryan Sinclair ended up in a closed theme park with his girlfriend of two years and a torch in his hand, trying to squeeze past a dormant clown. 

"Oh, I'm going to get in so much trouble for this." Yasmin commented through the darkness.

She wasn't wrong. PC Yasmin Khan had been warned on more than one occasion to not bring her boyfriend on duty when she received a strange report. The last time had not gone down well, after Ryan had broken his foot after tripping over something, Yasmin had received several lectures on police conduct. When she'd pointed out that had Ryan not been with her, he would've injured himself further by trying not to get caught by her, her captain was not happy. Still, if it got Ryan to shut up about aliens at home for two minutes, then Yasmin didn't mind if she got raged at by work. This time had to be a new extreme. Three reports of a disturbance had called Yasmin to the theme park, Wild Water Kingdom, and promptly Ryan with her. The place had been shut down for a few years, before Yasmin had become a police officer. Ryan had looked around it a couple of times as a teenager, like the blog had mentioned a couple of times, but had found no Doctor. 

"I promise, I won't break my foot this time." Ryan said, passing his girlfriend a torch. 

"Yeah, when haven't I heard that before?" Yasmin replied unhappily, flipping the torch on. She nearly jumped when it did, a close-up of another clown flashed in her face. "God, who's idea was it to come in the circus tent?"

"Yours." Ryan pointed out, gesturing around the tent of abandoned clowns. "You know, aliens could fit a spaceship in here."

Yasmin rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. Who knows, maybe they flew here on the roundabout horses..." She muttered sarcastically. "They'll kill us with candy floss."

Ryan sighed and nudged her shoulder, knocking her tactical vest askew slightly. "C'mon, don't be like that. Let's check outside, I think I heard something." 

He hadn't actually heard anything outside, but he knew from experience that Yasmin was afraid of clowns. Halloween 2016 had taught him to never buy a red nose and face paint ever again. The pair stepped out into the clearing, Yasmin using her torch to scan the area. It was pretty rundown. Tents were collapsed, fake structures were broken, and everything was pitch black. It was like something out of a creepy horror flick, in Yasmin's opinion. Ryan thought it was pretty cool. Yasmin rolled her eyes to see his curious expression looking for his aliens underneath a tent. 

"So, you reckon this Doctor of yours is just going to show up in an abandoned park?" She said, looking around some more. "God, if I wasn't here, you'd get into so much trouble if you were caught-"

Ryan straightened up and looked at her. "You think I don't know that?" He said calmly, gesturing to himself. 

The silence between them was massive, and it made Yasmin shut up. Ryan almost regretted saying it, but it needed to be said. He did sometimes resent Yasmin for her job, knowing what policemen were like to black men in London. Especially at night. Other times, he admired her deeply. But he couldn't think about that right now. Ryan offered a small smile and pointed to the ghost train at the back of the park. 

"Reckon that's haunted?."

Yasmin didn't reply, but followed after him. The ghost train looked particularly creepy, it was all broken and rundown. The cart was smashed and its paint, faded. As they approached a loud crash came from indoors. Yasmin froze, and Ryan took her hand. That was something she liked about Ryan, he was brave. Granted, with his previous antics, he was very used to the things that went bump in the night, but Yasmin still felt a little jumpy. The crash had intrigued the teenager and now he was pulling his girlfriend towards the creaking train insistently.

"Will you slow down?" Yasmin hissed, her voice thick with her northern accent. It came out more when she was frightened, Ryan had noticed. 

He slowed his pace, but excitement was coursing through his veins. If this was the Doctor, then Ryan could go home and show he wasn't as crazy as everyone thought it was. He just hoped it wasn't a stray cat this time around. As the pair stepped onto the first train carriage, the crash was heard again. The carriage rattled, signifying that it was something larger than a cat. Yasmin went in front,  she was a policewoman after all. She needed to be braver than her lanky, nerd boyfriend. As they treaded carefully between the seats, careful to ignore the creepy props set up around it, the noises seemed to dull to low thuds. They got to the last carriage and exchanged a look. While Yasmin looked concerned, Ryan had an excited lit up expression on his face. He looked like a maniac, getting high off of the excitement. Ryan grinned and reached for the door.

As he did, the door suddenly swung open and Ryan was greeted by an unexpected sight. A woman, not much taller than Yasmin, stood in the doorway. She had dirty blonde hair, that hung limply just above her shoulders and an extremely grubby face, covered in dirt and soot. Her clothes were torn and faded, seemingly a size or two too big for her. There was a big black coat that nearly reached her knees, paired with a ripped red hoodie. A torn white shirt was underneath so large that it reached midway down her thighs and past her hands, the collar ruffled and ripped. She was pretty, if you liked that sort of thing. Deep dimples were embedded into her cheeks and her big brown eyes were full of wonder. 

"Ma'am? Are you alright?" Yasmin asked, keeping the torch out of the woman's eyes. 

When she reached forward, the blonde flinched backwards, suddenly catching on that she was in the presence of company. "Alright? Me?" She leaned in towards Yasmin, studying the officer's face curiously. "You talking to me?"

Ryan chuckled. "Yeah, we are." He ran his torch over the woman's clothing, then peered a little closer. "Hold on."

He pulled out his phone and one of the screenshots on his camera roll. It depicted the latest photo that claimed that this was the Doctor, a tiny elfin woman with mid-length brown hair accompanying him. According to the blog, this woman was called Clara Oswald. Ryan had tried to track her down, but she was nowhere to be found. But Ryan wasn't focusing on Clara. He noticed how the clothes the man in the photo wore was the same as the woman stood in front of him, only they were all intact. 

"You're, um, _it_. Aren't you?" He said excitedly, earning a confused look from the woman stood in front of him. "You're the Doctor."

The woman frowned, but she seemed unusually curious. "Sorry, what?" She asked, loudly. Startled at her own volume, her hand flew to her throat. "Still northern. Oh, that's brilliant! Fantastic!"

Ryan showed the woman his phone. "You're the Doctor, aren't you?" 

The blonde took his phone and studied the picture. A little smile came across her face as her dirty fingers traced over it. "I looked great didn't I?" She said, her voice thick with a northern accent. She handed the phone back. "Where did you get this picture?"

"Uh, it's, I, um...I got it from a blog. An online one, y'know? Uh, it's called LINDA or something-"  

"Look, can you just tell him whether you're the Doctor or not before he completely malfunctions." Yasmin ordered, noticing Ryan starting to lose his cool. 

The woman laughed with a scoff, gesturing up and down herself. "I don't know who I am!" She said. "Or you, for that matter, who are you?"

Yasmin straightened up, trying to level her chin with this mad woman. She pulled out her credentials. "PC Yasmin Khan."

"Ryan Sinclair." Ryan chimed in, shaking the blonde's hand. "You?"

"Oh god knows." The woman replied enthusiastically. "Wait a minute. You called me ma'am, why'd you call me ma'am?" 

Yasmin looked a little taken aback, but she frowned. "Because you're a woman?"

Her eyes widened and she latched onto one of her platinum blonde locks. She clapped her hands together excitedly, her eyes shining brightly. "Am I? Am I really? Oh that's so cool!" She cheered, grinning excitedly. 

Yasmin and Ryan exchanged a look. 

 _"Is she alright?"_ Ryan mouthed.

Yasmin shook her head and shrugged. The blonde was fumbling around ecstatically, something had evidently come to mind. Ryan frowned when the woman did a dramatic spin, her coat flying around her. "What are you doing?"

She dug into her ripped pockets and pulled a funny looking thing out. It was like a metal stick, except it was burnt at one end. It wasn't very long, and silver where it wasn't singed, about the size of a medium ruler. She twiddled it in her fingers and showed it towards them.

"What's that?" Yasmin asked with disgust. It looked like a piece of crap. 

The woman held it up brightly. "This is who I am. I can remember, I think."

"Yeah? Who are you?" Ryan chimed, hope rising in his voice. 

The blonde smiled, a cheeky wink in her eye. "I'm the Doctor."

 

 


End file.
